Aim: Emergent infectious diseases often lack medical treatment or preventive vaccines, thus requiring non-pharmaceutical interventions such as quarantine to reduce disease transmission. Quarantine, defined as the separation and restriction of movement of healthy people who have potentially been exposed to the disease, remains contentious especially when the risks and benefits are not fully discussed and not effectively communicated to the people by the organizations who impose this public health measure.

Subject and methods: A qualitative evidence synthesis was conducted to examine the phenomenon of adherence to quarantine focused on the following questions: What strategies affect adherence to quarantine? What are the barriers and facilitators to quarantine acceptance? What benefits and harms of quarantine have been described or measured?

Results: The evidence synthesis produced 18 findings assessed with high confidence. The findings were used to construct a conceptual framework for inter- and within-organization coordination and public communication that includes the following topics for consideration: desired orientation for implementation; population demographics; perceptions of messages; prior acceptance of quarantine; likelihood of impacts of quarantine; perceptions of health infrastructure; and perceptions of policy importance.

Conclusion: The findings and conceptual framework can guide development of effective non-pharmaceutical interventions and as such have direct relevance to public health policy and decision-making for intervening in emergent infectious diseases outbreak such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.